Hotels in Exmoor and Dartmoor are counting the cost of extreme weather
Hotels in Exmoor and Dartmoor are counting the cost of the extreme weather conditions with one proprietor reporting up to £25k in loss of trade.
Many of the hotels rely heavily on business brought in by game shooting season.
Kirsty Hoskins, co-owner of the Royal Oak, Winsford, in Exmoor National Park, told Caterer that the snow has resulted in cancelled bookings at a cost of £20k-£25k.
"January money is survival money. It sees us through February and March, which is a notoriously dead period in the region," she said.
The severity of the situation has led Hoskins and her co-owner husband Ed to take "radical decisions" in a bid to limit the damage to the business.
"We will be offering free accommodation from 1 February through to 25 March, with the condition that guests order breakfast and dinner in the hotel restaurant," she explained. "Our only alternative would be to close for two months which is simply not viable. It's a negative move on so many levels."
Richard Benn, partner at the Tarr Farm Inn, near Dulverton, Exmoor National Park, also reported shoot party cancellations.
"We're not totally cut off, but economically it has been very hard," he admitted. "We've been paying for our own lanes to be swept and gritted, but if you can't get guests in there's not an awful lot you can do."
However, while the snow has brought with it increasingly tough trading conditions, many proprietors reported a greater sense of "Dunkirk spirit" within the surrounding communities.
Gidleigh Park general manager Sue Williams told Caterer that her team were experiencing the type of team-building exercise that many companies would pay a fortune to receive.
She added that in spite of the Dartmoor hotel's location at the end of one-and-a-half miles of single track, every effort has been made to ensure the 26 live-in staff have provisions.
"Suppliers have been particularly creative, establishing a relay service to get goods to the site and luckily a local farmer helped by providing us with 800 litres of oil to see us through until our next delivery can get through," she said.
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By Janie Stamford
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